Posted By:Bretsky on February 21, 2016

Spring training has arrived and the fantasy baseball staff here at BretskyBall is focused on the most wonderful time of the year: fantasy baseball draft season. Here is our first look at the shortstop position heading into the 2016 fantasy baseball season. Check back throughout the spring for updated positional rankings.

Posted By:Bretsky on February 21, 2016

Spring training has arrived and the fantasy baseball staff here at BretskyBall is focused on the most wonderful time of the year: fantasy baseball draft season. Here is our first look at the third base position heading into the 2016 fantasy baseball season. Check back throughout the spring for updated positional rankings.

Posted By:Bretsky on February 21, 2016

Spring training has arrived and the fantasy baseball staff here at BretskyBall is focused on the most wonderful time of the year: fantasy baseball draft season. Here is our first look at the second base position heading into the 2016 fantasy baseball season. Check back throughout the spring for updated positional rankings.

Posted By:Bretsky on February 21, 2016

Spring training has arrived and the fantasy baseball staff here at BretskyBall is focused on the most wonderful time of the year: fantasy baseball draft season. Here is our first look at the first base position heading into the 2016 fantasy baseball season. Check back throughout the spring for updated positional rankings.

Posted By:Bretsky on February 21, 2016

Spring training has arrived and the fantasy baseball staff here at BretskyBall is focused on the most wonderful time of the year: fantasy baseball draft season. Here is our first look at the catcher position heading into the 2016 fantasy baseball season. Check back throughout the spring for updated positional rankings.

Posted By:Bretsky on September 17, 2015

Welcome to Week 2 of the 2015 fantasy football season. If you’ve got start/sit questions heading into Sunday’s games, find us on twitter or leave ’em in the comments!

Posted By:Bretsky on April 7, 2015

After a couple years layoff, we are resurrecting our old friend —  The 11th Inning Stretch  — a daily breeze through the box score to uncover the hidden gems that will aid your quest to a fantasy championship. We’ll also throw in a couple of DFS selections for those of you testing out the waters on the daily game.

Leading Off

As daily fans across the land rushed to stack the Brew Crew against Rockies Opening Day start Kyle Kendrick, they found themselves on the wrong side of the diamond from the premiere offensive assault. The Rockies brought their big bats on their season opening rod trip, putting up a dime on Kyle Lohse and the Brewers. Third baseman Nolan Arenado led the way with a  3-for-4 efforts, slugging a home run, scoring three times and driving in four. Troy Tulowitzki joined him with three runs scored and Corey Dickerson matched his RBI total with a four steak game as well. A healthy Carlos Gonzalez also chipped in a pair of hits out of the two-hole, giving the Rockies more depth in the lineup than they’ve since the days of Larry Walker and Dante Bichette.

The numbers in that little table thingy above are quite frankly eye-popping and would seem to support the conventional wisdom that this team only hits when at home. Still, it’s important to realize that health has also played a major role on the Rox success over the last several years. Teams that are built around two foundation bats tend to slump when one or the other is not in the lineup and the Rockies have suffered through long stretches without the services of CarGo and Tulo. With a bit of depth added to the lineup in the form of Arenado and Dickerson, the Rockies will be able to keep their studs fresh in the hopes also keeping them healthy.

This is the best looking Rockies lineup we’ve seen in well over a decade and it will be a force both in the thin air of Coors field and when they take the show on the road.

Other Notables

• Alex Rios made a splash in his Royals debut, knocking three hits including a homer and swiping a bag as well. Over the past three season, Rios has put together a .288/.324/.452 slash while averaging 18 home runs and 30 steals per 162 games. There is plenty of gas left in the tank.
• It was more of the same from AL Cy Young winner Corey Kluber as he tossed 7.1 strong inning with seven strikeouts. Kluber was out-duelded by fellow 2015 breakout Dallas Keuchel. We didn’t like the three free passes that Keuchel handed out, but he continues to rack up the ground balls while throwing with confidence.
• Boston’s bats played a bit of homer run derby against Cole Hamels and the Phillies on Opening Day, slugging five long balls — two each for Dustin Pedroia and Hanley Ramirez and one for Mooke Betts. On the flip side, Clay Buchholz dominated a punchless Phillies offense. An encouraging performance for Buchholz for sure, but we’re going to take away from this the ability to stream starters early and often against this miserable Phialdelphia squad.
• Todd Frazier came up with the big hit for the Reds to give them an Opening Day W, but watching Joey Votto collect a pair of hits out of the two-hole and Jay Bruce go deep in the fourth off of lefty Francisco Liriano are the details to note.
• Masahiro Tanaka‘s new arsenal did not have positive results, he failed to get through the fifth inning for just the second time in his career. After taking a flier in a couple of draft where the Yankees ace slipped outside the top-100 picks, I’m still hanging on, but Tanaka is probably a bench-worthy candidate until he turns in a useful start.

Call to the Pen

• Jason Grilli got he nod in post-Kimbrel Atlanta. He showed solid strikeout skills down the stretch last season and should do just fine.
• Chris Hatcher locked down the save for the Dodgers, and should continue to do so as long as he has success in Kenley Jansen‘s absence.

Injuries and Such

• Buddy Carlyle grabbed the save for the Mets with Jenrry Mejia unable to shake elbow soreness as he warned up in the ninth. Jeurys Familia is the priority add and would likely have garnered the opportunity had he not already pitched in the game.
• Matt Cain was diagnosed with a strained flexor tendon and is headed for the disabled list. Jake Peavy has also been scratched from his start later this week, leaving the San Francisco rotation up in the air. Ryan Vogelsong will fill in one of the spots, but fantasy owners need to keep an eye on Yusmiero Petite, who’s strikeout rate alone makes him mix-league worthy.

Daily Fantasy Deals

Each day we’ll toss out a batter and a pitcher who is making their way into our DFS lineups

Bat

Stephen Vogt: After blasting a three-run shot on Opening Day, Vogt should find himself in the lineup once again with a right-hander of the mound. Vogt offers underrated power and is catcher eligible in the Draft Kings game. For an affordable 7% of your budget, he’s a nice option over more expensive backstops Buster Posey and Jonathan Lucroy.

Arm

Zack Greinke: He’s likely to be among the priciest options at starting pitcher regardless of format, but Greinke has  a nice matchup agains the Padres heavily right-handed lineup in San Diego.

Posted By:Bretsky on April 2, 2015

With Opening Day just around the corner, we’re continuing to tweak our top-250 rankings heading into the season. Be sure to check back for daily updates as rosters are finalized and roles are decided prior to the kickoff of another glorious fantasy baseball season.

2015 Fantasy Baseball Rankings

Posted By:Bretsky on October 1, 2014

Time to check back in with our Filthy 40 — the top 40 fantasy players for the balance of the seasons. We are through one week of byes and the players who have already sat get a slight boost in the ranks.

It continues to be a fluid situation at the top with Demarco Murray taking over the cat-bird seat.  Murray leads the most valuable position on the fantasy gridiron in scoring and is running hard behind one of the leagues top-young offensive lines. The ‘Boys have also been a top-5 rushing team in terms of run-pass balance and will continue to feed Murray the rock.

Have in issue with our breakdown of the fantasy elites? Let us know in the comments.

Dropped out: Shane Vereen, Reggie Wayne, Joique Bell, Cordarell Petterson, Percy Harvin, Doug Martin

Just missed (in no particular order): Eric Decker, Kelvin Benjamin, Brandin Cooks, Keenan Allen, Darren Sproles, Steve Smith, Chis Ivory, Reggie Bush, Stevan Ridley, Matt Ryan, Ahmad Bradshaw, Michael Crabtree

Posted By:Bretsky on September 15, 2014

It was a true test of character Sunday as we saw star after star drop out of action while Darrell Young, Matt Asiata and Jed Collins paced the early scoring.  If you managed to survive Week 2 without a significant player hitting the turf, consider yourself one of the lucky ones. Still, as is the case in most fantasy weeks, the cream eventually rose to the top and we got a number of stand-out performances from our studs. Thankfully, it appears that the majority of our injured elites escaped serious long-term maladies and while you may have some question marks heading into Week 3, the early news on most is encouraging. It’s weeks like this that remind us just how volatile this game can be.

Enter the filthy 40.

To help you make sense of all of the ups and downs on Sunday, we’re going to take some time each week to provide you an updated (and quite frankly, fluid) ranking of the top-40 overall players for standard leagues. Previous performance will certainly carry weight, but consider this list as a quick little cheat sheet if drafting today for the rest of the season. Whenever a trade inquiry flies into our mailbox and we quickly respond “Get the best player” it is this elite tier of talent that we are targeting. Disagree with how things shake out? We certainly welcome criticism in the comments — or a more public form of shaming if you choose.

After a painful Week 2, here’s how things stack up.

Just missed (in no particular order): Emmanuel Sanders, Matt Ryan, Reggie Bush, Vincent Jackson, Larry Fitzgerald, Andre Johnson, Rashad Jennings, Victor Cruz, Frank Gore, Michael Crabtree, Eric Decker, Golden Tate, Jeremy Maclin, Andrew Luck, Stevan Ridley, Darren Sproles.